National Do Not Call Registry

Like everyone else I get unsolicited unsolicited calls on my mobile phone. What is more irritating is when you are already a customer with the bank that is calling – they don’t even check whether someone is their customer or not, instead they randomly call numbers. To communicate our displeasure with this, if we decide to switch banks, it is not so easy to do. And almost all private banks and insurance companies in India seems to be doing this, so you will not be able to find a company that doesn’t. I bank mostly with Public Sector banks but for some convenience like Web Banking, Credit Cards and ATM I bank with a private bank. As consumers we need a remedy to this problem.

About a year or so back, TRAI introduced the National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC Registry). Telemarketers are needed by law to check with the NDNC database before making a call or face a penalty. You can register in NDNC by sending a SMS with text “START DND” to 1909 or register in your Mobile Service Provider’s website (for me it will be Vodafone). Apart from TRAI’s NDNC Registry, RBI recommended about 3 years for all Banks under it to have an individual DNC registry with them, you can register in each of them by going to their respective websites. I have registered myself in all of these sites, after registering the number of calls I get have certainly come down. If you still get calls you can complain to the callers that they are violating law by calling a DNC number.

Last week on a single day I got two marketing calls from ICICI Bank and one call from ABN Amro. Irritated I was looking for a remedy, I found a page in ICICI website to complain if you keep getting calls even after registering. I emailed to the id donotcall at icicibank.com that was in the page quoting the time, my mobile number and the phone numbers from which I got the call. I added in the email that if I continued to get calls I will seek remedy by lodging a complaint to RBI Ombudsman and TRAI consumer cell. I was not hopeful of any reply, but I was pleasantly surprised to get a reply within 2 days from ICICI stating that they have taken note of my complaint, apologized and assured that I will not get any further calls. I was certainly impressed by this service from ICICI and I hope other banks will follow this good practice.

1 Comment

Many Thanks same experience… Already registered with National Do Not Call Registry with TRAi about 4 Months Back and still getting calls. I have bee searching for a way to complain to TRAI and this Forum Guided me properly…